Mankind has come across many stages right from ancient Stone Age to the modern wireless age. In every stage it developed its own unique method of communication to suit its requirements. These methods range from Graham Bellâ„¢s cabled telephones to todayâ„¢s wireless mobile handsets. But if there could be a technology such that the waves could surpass any obstacles like hard walls or the hard earth etcÂ¦ isnâ„¢t it wonderful like a dream? It isnâ„¢t a dream anymore!!! The new technology called ULTRA WIDE BAND has brought all our dreams come true with many features to add.
It has A band width extending 25%of the center frequency Speeds of 1Giga bits per second See through capability Less power requirement Superior performance over all the existing technologies. and many moreÂ¦ This paper discusses what this technology is and how it is capable of all these features. Further it discusses wide range of applications in communication field and how it is yet to revolutionize the Mobile Communications.
[b]INTRODUCTION
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Mobile communications field has tremendously revolutionized in the past few decades. Day- by- day many new features are getting added. Today one is able to view running images on the small screen of the mobile handset. Such features demand for very high speeds showing way to the emergence of new and capable technologies. Ultra wide band has been described as one of the most promising technologies of our times. Early Ultra wide band systems were developed mainly as a military surveillance tool because they could see through trees and beneath ground surfaces. UWB is true digital radio communication, a series of very short electrical pulses (billionths of a second) that exist not on any particular frequency, But on ALL frequencies simultaneously. It is just a blast of electrical noise. In order to hear the information in that code, a UWB receiver has to know exactly WHEN to listen in order to hear. This makes UWB very secure. UWB is pretty much immune to eavesdropping, is equally immune to interference or jamming, and because its broad frequency range includes the ultra low frequencies used to communicate with submerged submarines. UWB requires ultra low power, often one ten thousandth as much as a cell phone, and because of that low power it is undetectable by conventional radios, looking to them just like very quiet noise. Besides UWB has important friends companies like Intel, IBM, Motorola and Texas Instruments that are committed to making UWB chipsets or have invested in uwb startups. A UWB phone uses so little power it can remain on for weeks without recharging and UWB will ultimately be cheaper to make than conventional radios since it is built entirely of commercial grade computer chips and requires no tuning. These are some of the unique characteristics posed by this new technology. Because of this it is completely irresistible to put this technology to use.
[b]Prevalent Technologies:
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WiFi, WiMax, 802.20, woznet etc are the prevalent technologies leading the wireless field today. Let us look at this table comparing these technologies in speed, coverage, their advantages and disadvantages.
[b]Main Disadvantage:[/b]
The main disadvantage of the above mentioned technologies is that of security. The new technology that is coming as a solution to the disadvantages of all these prevalent technologies is the base band, Zero carrier ULTRA WIDE BAND technology that can drive data at the rates of 1Giga bits per second. UWB emits background noise as harmless as the static produced by laptop PCs. It operates at one- millionth of the power of a cell phone and many more.
ULTRA WIDE BAND- A new technology with thousands of potential applications
UWB is an impulse, base band or zero carrier technology transmitting very short duration pulses often of duration of nanoseconds or even less. UWB systems transmit signals across a much wider frequency than conventional systems and are usually very difficult to detect.
The bandwidth of UWB signal is at least 25% of center frequency. The minimum bandwidth of a UWB signal centered at 4GHz would be 1GHz. This allows it to deliver data rates in excess of 100Mbps using a small amount of power and operating in the same bands as existing communications without producing significant interference. UWB is fundamentally different from all other RF communications. It is unique in that it achieves wireless communications without using a sine wave RF carrier. Instead it uses modulated high frequency, low energy pulses of less than one nano second in duration.
Unique characteristics:

Ultra Wide Band will either be the beginning of a new age of communication or the end of an old one, and probably both. Range is limited to around one kilometer UWB trades bandwidth for distance, so longer links are slower. UWB will raise the noise threshold for the radio astronomers.
Major UWB Application Areas:-

These are some of the applications of UWB in hardware form. Many more that can be cited are Surveillance Systems Medical Systems Through-wall Imaging Systems Wall Imaging Systems Ground Penetrating Radar Systems a within near future. Though the coverage range is only one kilometer, this is only the beginning. It is surprising that a no carrier base band signal can travel so fast (1Giga bits per second) and still cover one kilometer. Revolutionary changes can be expected in the field of Mobile communications with the dream speeds coming true some day. Using a narrow band carrier for the signal modulation may increase the coverage range without compromising with the large bandwidth it poses.
UWB is not restricted only to wireless communications. It can also travel through cables and wires yielding 1Giga bits per second- data rate So, this may lead us back to older wire-communications, Already many devices are built using this technology to aid in radar and satellite communications and this will not take longer to enter the field of consumer electronics and revolutionize it adding many more features to the existing ones. In short, this technology is capable of compressing the whole world into a small monitor of a mobile phone within the wink of an eye.